Narcotics haul in Sakchi

The seized narcotics at Sakchi police station on Monday. Picture by Animesh Sengupta

A police team on Monday raided three shops in Sakchi market’s Chuna Line in Jamshedpur and seized what they claimed was doda — a by product of opium — and marijuana powder.

The raid, which came after a tip-off, also netted five persons, including two suppliers, who were later identified as Anil Kumar, Manish Kumar, Shushil Prasad, Hari Prasad and Vikash Kumar.

The police have booked all the accused under the Narcotic Drug and Psychotropic Substance Act, which carries a maximum jail term of 10 years. They will also send samples of the seized narcotics to a forensic laboratory for testing, the reports of which can be used as evidence in a court of law against the accused.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Sakchi police station in-charge Bholanath Singh said the drugs used to be stored in empty paint containers by the accused to avoid suspicion. The suppliers, he said, smuggled in the drugs from Bihar on long-distance buses and supplied them in Sakchi.

“We do not know for how long the shopkeepers have been selling these narcotics. But going by the stocks we seized — 22kg of doda and three kilos of marijuana — it seems like they had been doing this for long,” Singh said. The narcotics, he claimed, were only sold to fixed customers or people known to the accused.

“The intoxicants were packed in paint containers and stored on the shelves of the stores. When a customer turned up, he would be ushered to the back of the store, where the containers would be opened,” Singh said.

The officer added that the estimated cost of the seized narcotics was estimated to be around Rs 1 lakh.

“We do not know the price of doda or marijuana in the black market. We will interrogate the accused to find out the real cost of the seized narcotics,” he said.